The SDGs represent challenges in advancing the broad access to information agenda because of the divergent goals and proliferating targets and indicators. At the same time, the broadness of many of the goals presents opportunities for the agenda, particularly in the form of open access and open science, to embed itself at the core, thus allowing concrete actions and policies to be formulated in order to achieve tangible development outcomes. I will focus in particular on Goal 9 (“Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”) and argue that information and knowledge are essential infrastructure needed to build local research capacity which are in turn the foundation for sustainable development. The growing understanding of the importance of sharing methods and results throughout the research life cycle further demands the need for appropriate infrastructure. Examples of such infrastructure, such as data and publication repositories, already exist at some local level, but they are often fragmented and lack adequate resources. It is therefore important for FAO/IFLA/COAR to continue to advocate for the development of knowledge infrastructure and to ensure that policies are in place to support their long term sustainability.
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Strengthening the Sustainable Development Goals with Open Access and Open Science
1. Strengthening the
Sustainable Development Goals with
Open Access and Open Science
Challenges and Opportunities
Webinar in conjunction with the e-forum on "Sustainable Development Goals: The
Impact of Access to Information on our Societies". Sept. 15, 2015
Leslie Chan
University of Toronto Scarborough
2. Agenda
• Personal background and conceptual
approaches to Open Access and Open Science
• SDGs, the good and the bad
• Specific links between the SDGs and Open
Science and Open Access
• Policy considerations
5. Centre
Could Open Access change the current
power structure of global scientific
production and dissemination?
Periphery
Periphery
open access creates the
potential for new spaces for
collaboration and co-creation
of knowledge
6. Openness as a means to
development
What is the nature of “openness” and
its linkage to innovations for public
goods and how can this understanding
help formulate and support enabling
policies?
7. Meanings of Openness
• Free of cost barriers
• Free of permission barriers
• Free to share and re-use
• Rights to Research, meaning the rights to
participate in knowledge production and
meaning making
• Inclusive Participation (beyond expertise)
• Equitable Collaboration
• Promote Cognitive justice
8. “The right to science envisages the
scientific and technological
endeavor as a process that every
person is entitled to participate in—
a collective and collaborative
process that can help to unite a
frequently fragmented world.”
Lea Shaver, The Right to Science and Culture. 2010 WISC. L. REV. 121 (2010)
9. Open and Collaborative Science
in Development Network
Funding:
Coordination
http://www.ocsdnet.org
@ocsdnet
10. A proposition that open
models and peer-based
production, enabled by
pervasive network
technologies, non-market
based incentive structures
and alternative licensing
regimes, could result in
greater participation, access
and collaboration across
different social and
economic sectors.
11. This call for:
• Diverse empirical research on “openness” across
disciplinary boundaries
• Development of rich conceptual frameworks that
acknowledge the diversity of knowledge production,
forms of representations, and legitimation
• Understanding principles of technical and social
interoperability and the supporting institutional
structures
• Rethinking on funding support and incentive structures
• Policy Alignment between funders and development
organizations
12. Open Science as Inclusive Science
• Could OCS thinking and practices lead to a
more inclusive view of knowledge production
and legitimation?
• What kind of tools, standards, infrastructure,
institutions and policies would need to be
created or adapted to enable OCS and equal
participation of researchers from marginalized
regions?
13. • The network is supporting 12 sub-projects with
researchers from 15 countries
• 3 projects from Sub-Saharan Africa, 1 from the
Middle East, 1 from the Caribbean, 4 from Latin
America, and 3 from South, East and Central Asia
• Diverse topics: citizen science, open hardware,
open data, IP policy, climate change, food
security, public health, indigenous knowledge,
sociology of science…
14. Open
Science
Doing Science
Openly
& Collaboratively
Open Data
Open Access
Overarching Framework:
Governance and Sustainability ?
Practice Principles Policy
Knowledge as a
Public Good
Knowing Differently
Inclusion
Innovation
Funding
Infrastructure
Intellectual
Property
Incentive
Rights to Research
for Social Justice
17. Build resilient
infrastructure,
promote inclusive and
sustainable
industrialisation and
foster innovation
End poverty
in all its
forms
everywhere
Promote peaceful
and inclusive
societies for
sustainable
development, provide
access to justice for
all and build effective,
accountable and
inclusive institutions
at all levels
18. Build resilient
infrastructure,
promote inclusive and
sustainable
industrialisation and
foster innovation
End poverty
in all its
forms
everywhere
Promote peaceful
and inclusive
societies for
sustainable
development, provide
access to justice for
all and build effective,
accountable and
inclusive institutions
at all levels
Knowledge
Infrastructure
Knowledge
Poverty
Cognitive
Justice and
Rights to
Research
19. The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA)
20. The World of Scientific Output According to Thomson’s ISI
Science Citation Index
Data from 2002
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=205
21. The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA)
How much of the
research output
from Africa are
relevant to the
problems faced
by Africans?
22. The need to build robust
and scalable Knowledge
Infrastructures to support
open research practices and
data sharing
23. “Knowledge infrastructures are complex
ecologies, adapting continuously to local and
global conditions and to changes in technology,
policy, and stakeholders”
Borgman, C. L., Darch, P. T., Sands, A. E., Pasquetto, I. V., Golshan, M. S., Wallis, J.
C., & Traweek, S. (2015). Knowledge infrastructures in science: data, diversity, and
digital libraries. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 16(3-4), 207–227.
http://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-015-0157-z
26. PLOS Biology | DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002204 July 23, 2015
If effective steps to secure the permanence of e-infrastructures are
not taken soon, we will risk having biological data, which are
currently organized and made available globally, once again
inaccessible. In the case of Brazil, speciesLink is in immediate peril of
disappearing. Brazil is one of the most diverse countries in the planet
[18], holding ~19% of all existing plant species [19]; thus, speciesLink
is not only of interest to Brazilian people and government anymore
but has acquired importance in the global scenario as well. Not only
will the hundreds of thousands of users of this system miss this
crucial research and policy infrastructure, but the social scientific
network linked to the e-infrastructure may lose strength.
27. Centre
What kind of Knowledge
Infrastructures do we need to
support truly universal Open
Science?
Periphery
Periphery
Global Knowledge Commons
Walled Garden
28. Open
Science
Doing Science
Openly
& Collaboratively
Open Data
Open Access
Overarching Framework:
Governance and Sustainability ?
Practice Principles Policy
Knowledge as a
Public Good
Knowing Differently
Inclusion
Innovation
Funding
Infrastructure
Intellectual
Property
Incentive
Rights to Research
for Social Justice
Open access and its potential
Participatory and collaborative
Challenging existing power hierarchy and reputation
Gaps in the SDGs
Inequality – inherently structural
Treating the symptoms, not the cause
Will open access change the current power structure of global scientific production and dissemination?
Hierarchy of knowledge created by an artifical systerm of “excellence” – that relegates science and scholarship that do not contribute to “world or international science” as being local and therefore irrelevant – and render invisible
Deeply structural = unequeal distribution of power and prestige
Research is essential for informing policy, especially policies related to development
The
right to science envisages the scientific and technological endeavor as
a process that every person is entitled to participate in—a collective
and collaborative process that can help to unite a frequently
fragmented world.
The OCSDNet is a newly aunched initiative funded the International Development Research Centre in Canada and the Department For International Development/UK –UKAID. The project is being jointly coordinated by iHub based in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Centre for Critical Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough where I work.
The network project is supported by an international team of expert advisors and Cameron Neylon is a key advisor to the project – advisors play a key role in overseeing the overall directions of the project and in mentoring the grant receipients of the project subgrants
Out starting assumption, one that will be the subject of critical assessment, is that open approaches to knowledge production have the potential to radically increase the visibility, reproducibility, efficiency, transparency and relevance of scientific research, while expanding the opportunities for a broad range of actors to participate in the knowledge production process.This latter claim about increased and more equitable particiatpions of researchers from the global South or marginalizaed regions is indeed one of the areas of focus for the OCSDNet
.
Both IDRC and DFID UKAID are strong supporter of Open Access and Openess and the emerging notion of Open Development
Development agencies such as the World Bank, Department for International Development in the United Kingdom and UNESCO are paying close attention to the ‘openness’ agenda and are supporting a variety of initiatives and policy development in these areas. Most recently the Gates Foundation, and WHO
general hypothesis - that open models and systems enabled by the Internet and pervasive technologies (such as mobile telephony), coupled with alternative Intellectual Property Rights regimes, may result in democratizing and network effects, which can in turn lead to greater access, participation, and collaboration in a number of fields and sectors – thereby leading to improved well being for individuals and their communities
IDRC is funding research in interrogating the quality of openness and the effects on education, in science and knowledge production, government, and in social enterprise, particularly the creative industries
It is in this broad context that the OCSDNet project is supported.
what open access policy should look like in the developing world. This is likely to include open access publication; the recognition of a wider range of research outputs; repository and communication strategies that recognize this and which take account of the realities of available capacity and infrastructure. And – a challenging issue – how to change reward and recognition systems to bring them into line with the real strategies of governments and institutions?
importance of new governance frame- works that provide lasting arrangements for secured funding
The
right to science envisages the scientific and technological endeavor as
a process that every person is entitled to participate in—a collective
and collaborative process that can help to unite a frequently
fragmented world.
SDGs – statement of aspirations – a voluntary agreement with no legally binding obligations signing member states
Long term visions that is often lacking in national planning and policy driven by short term political gain
Goals supposed to be for all nations, not just developing countries, but often it is often vague as to who the instructions are directed? Who is supposed to be responsible for taking the actions? Who are supposed to be the acting agents?
Should not simply appeal to government and powerful agents for greater efforts, but should call for structural reforms of the global institutional order that conditions the options and incentive of these agents. --- Jean Claude Guedon re the institutions that priviledge knowledge of the Global North
The need to include strong human rights language – Lyon Declaration importance of the access to information as a human rights
Indicators? Incentives?
Three international funding bodies are giving seed cash of around US$4.5 million to establish the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA). The London-based biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust also hopes to transfer the management of millions of dollars in its research funds to the alliance. AESA’s other two backers are the UK Department for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington. The idea is that AESA will be a platform for managing Africa-focused research programmes and a think tank to direct the continent’s science.
In addition to serving as a scientific think tank, AESA will manage more than $70 million in Africa- focused research programmes as part of its broader effort to build pan-African scientific capacity and leadership.
metrics of total publications and citations.
Top 15 countries account for 82% of total publications
Author with African institutional affiliation account for less than 1% of global output, and S. Africa has the highest output. The rest are “invisible”
Consequence of trying to publish in “International” journal results in neglect of important local problems and solutions that are appropriate for local conditions.
Three international funding bodies are giving seed cash of around US$4.5 million to establish the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA). The London-based biomedical charity the Wellcome Trust also hopes to transfer the management of millions of dollars in its research funds to the alliance. AESA’s other two backers are the UK Department for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington. The idea is that AESA will be a platform for managing Africa-focused research programmes and a think tank to direct the continent’s science.
In addition to serving as a scientific think tank, AESA will manage more than $70 million in Africa- focused research programmes as part of its broader effort to build pan-African scientific capacity and leadership.
FAO, IFLA, COAR, EIFL
big issue, which is the financing of science, technology and innovation in Africa by African governments,” he says. The absence of commitments mean that heads of state will probably adopt it without much debate, he adds, and governments will be able to ignore it easily thereafter.
big issue, which is the financing of science, technology and innovation in Africa by African governments,” he says. The absence of commitments mean that heads of state will probably adopt it without much debate, he adds, and governments will be able to ignore it easily thereafter.
The time has come for countries to seriously support biodiversity information e-infrastruc- tures: some must support initial steps in implementation, whereas other countries (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and many others) have the luxury of having facilities already in place. If effective steps to secure the permanence of e-infrastructures are not taken soon, we will risk having biological data, which are currently organized and made available globally, once again inaccessible. In the case of Brazil, speciesLink is in immediate peril of disappearing. Brazil is one of the most diverse countries in the planet [18], holding ~19% of all existing plant species [19]; thus, speciesLink is not only of interest to Brazilian people and government any- more but has acquired importance in the global scenario as well. Not only will the hundreds of thousands of users of this system miss this crucial research and policy infrastructure, but the social scientific network linked to the e-infrastructure may lose strength.
Will open access change the current power structure of global scientific production and dissemination?
Hierarchy of knowledge created by an artifical systerm of “excellence” – that relegates science and scholarship that do not contribute to “world or international science” as being local and therefore irrelevant – and render invisible
Deeply structural = unequeal distribution of power and prestige
what open access policy should look like in the developing world. This is likely to include open access publication; the recognition of a wider range of research outputs; repository and communication strategies that recognize this and which take account of the realities of available capacity and infrastructure. And – a challenging issue – how to change reward and recognition systems to bring them into line with the real strategies of governments and institutions?
importance of new governance frame- works that provide lasting arrangements for secured funding
The
right to science envisages the scientific and technological endeavor as
a process that every person is entitled to participate in—a collective
and collaborative process that can help to unite a frequently
fragmented world.